IndiaNPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94Stories and features from the KUOW newsroom.NPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94IndiaFri, 26 Jan 2018 03:37:45 +0000Indiahttp://kuow.org
Scott NeumanShops were ransacked and vehicles torched in parts of India on Thursday as activists from Hindu nationalist groups showed their anger over the release of a controversial film about a 14 th Century Muslim and a Hindu queen. A school bus was reportedly pelted with stones in Gurgaon, Haryana, and a Roadways bus was burned to a hulk. Acts of vandalism were also reported in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, according to The Hindustan Times. Tension over the Bollywood epic Padmaavat have been brewing since it began shooting in 2016. The controversy centers around the story of a Muslim emperor, Alauddin Khilji, who, besotted by a Rajput queen, laid siege to her Meewar kingdom in hopes of capturing her. Hindu groups allege that the film contains an intimate dream sequence depicting a romantic encounter between Queen Padmavati, played by Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone, and Khiliji, portrayed by Ranveer Singh. However, director Sanjay Leela Bhansali has insistedViolent Protests In India Follow Release Of Controversial Bollywood Epichttp://kuow.org/post/violent-protests-india-follow-release-controversial-bollywood-epic
121051 as http://kuow.orgThu, 25 Jan 2018 10:04:00 +0000Violent Protests In India Follow Release Of Controversial Bollywood EpicAliyah MusaliarI’m the worst cook. Actually, I'm worse than the worst. I’m the kid who burnt cereal because I thought microwaving Cocoa Puffs would result in a more melty-chocolate flavor.Cooking curry is my mom's feminist acthttp://kuow.org/post/cooking-curry-my-moms-feminist-act
116697 as http://kuow.orgThu, 16 Nov 2017 03:24:15 +0000Cooking curry is my mom's feminist actJohn O'BrienWhen an acclaimed novelist publishes their first new work in 20 years, people take notice. When the first book was Arundhati Roy’s “The God of Small Things,” the interest is especially intense. She was awarded the esteemed Booker Prize for the best novel in the English language in 1997. Roy’s new work is “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.” The novel concerns, as she suggests in the text itself, “the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation.” That nation is India. Its divisions and tumults are central, but the themes are global, timely and even otherworldly. The work has been compared to Gabriel García Márquez’s, “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” At this event, Roy read from her much anticipated second novel and spoke with The Elliott Bay Book Company’s Rick Simonson about her writing process, political and social activism, non-fiction work and the complexities of life in India. Sonya Harris recorded this Town Hall Seattle event on June‘God of Small Things’ author has a new book — after 20 yearshttp://kuow.org/post/god-small-things-author-has-new-book-after-20-years
108653 as http://kuow.orgThu, 13 Jul 2017 21:39:04 +0000‘God of Small Things’ author has a new book — after 20 yearsFehmida ZakeerAs I hurry home battling the rush hour traffic in the evening, I see a queue in front of the gates of the local mosque. Men in white skull caps, women clad in saris and burkas, young children with school bags on their backs — all are waiting with containers in their hands for a share of the nombu kanji. Mosques in the south Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala distribute the kanji, a lightly spiced rice and lentil porridge, before the sunset prayers during the fasting month of Ramadan, which starts Friday evening. During her pre-Ramadan shopping, Shahida Khalique from Tiruppur, a town in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, buys extra rice, lentils, spices and other items for making nombu kanji . She distributes the additional provisions among four women who work for her. "I give them enough ingredients to make the nombu kanji for 15 days," she says. "On the days I add meat to my kanji, I give them a portion so that they, too, can cook their kanji with meat that day." Her sister-in-law,In Southern India, The Spirit Of Ramadan Is Served In A Bowl Of Porridgehttp://kuow.org/post/southern-india-spirit-ramadan-served-bowl-porridge
105469 as http://kuow.orgFri, 26 May 2017 12:00:00 +0000In Southern India, The Spirit Of Ramadan Is Served In A Bowl Of PorridgeeditorSince the February death of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the first bias fatality of the Trump era, one question has been coursing through South Asian-American circles: was this hate-crime killing in Olathe, Kansas their "Vincent Chin moment"? Chin was a Chinese-American in Detroit who was beaten to death by two white men in 1982. His death is credited with sparking a pan-Asian-American activist movement. In "The Making of Asian America: A History," author Erika Lee quotes activist Helen Zia as saying, "Suddenly people who had endured a lifetime of degrading treatment were wondering if their capacity to suffer in silence might no longer be a virtue." Like Chin, Kuchibhotla was an immigrant, and had moved to the country from India. Both men were victims of ethnic mis-identification: Chin's killers thought he was Japanese, and that he was somehow to blame for U.S. auto manufacturing jobs being lost. In Kuchibhotla's case, the alleged shooter told a bartender that he'd killed two Iranians,Indian Americans Reckon With Reality Of Hate Crimeshttp://kuow.org/post/indian-americans-reckon-reality-hate-crimes
104670 as http://kuow.orgMon, 15 May 2017 22:18:36 +0000Indian Americans Reckon With Reality Of Hate CrimesEsha ChhabraTwo weeks ago, a hashtag began going viral in India: #LahuKaLagaan. It literally means the tax on blood. That would be India's tax on sanitary napkins — 12 to 15 percent on top of the 40 to 80 rupees (.60 cents to $1.25) for a package of eight. (Typically sold in an unmarked black plastic bag because India is not big on talking about menstrual topics.) Cost is one reason that 88 percent of India's 355 million menstruating women do not use sanitary napkins. The other reason is that the pads may not be available where they live. The data comes from a study by AC Nielsen published last year in the International Research Journal of Social Sciences. The Indian government is now developing a new system for the taxation of goods and services (GST). SheSays , a youth-led organization focused on furthering the rights of women, decided to take up the tax issue through a cheeky online campaign, featuring comedian/actor Mallika Dua and Bollywood celebs like Shenaz Treasurywala. In a one-minuteWomen (And Men) Demand An End To India's Tax On Sanitary Padshttp://kuow.org/post/women-and-men-demand-end-indias-tax-sanitary-pads
103939 as http://kuow.orgThu, 04 May 2017 16:32:00 +0000Women (And Men) Demand An End To India's Tax On Sanitary PadsJohn O'BrienThe Storywallahs series provides a stage for Puget Sound residents with roots in India and South Asia to tell stories. This time around the theme concerned the question of belonging. In the era of "making America great again," these stories help illuminate what it means to be great in the first place.Here's a loaded question: Where do you belong?http://kuow.org/post/heres-loaded-question-where-do-you-belong
103390 as http://kuow.orgThu, 27 Apr 2017 21:20:14 +0000Here's a loaded question: Where do you belong?editorIn San Francisco, companies will pay six-figure salaries to entry-level tech workers from all over the world. So this might come as a surprise: A public university there is laying off some of its own IT staff and sending their jobs to a contractor with headquarters in India. Until recently, Hank Nguyen's daughter wanted to follow in his footsteps and work in tech. Last spring, she was accepted into the University of California system. "She was inclined to take computer science and engineering," Nguyen says. But then the letters started arriving. The first was a hefty tuition bill. At about the same time, Nguyen got a layoff notice. His employer, the University of California San Francisco , or UCSF, was outsourcing his job. Nguyen was stunned. How would he pay for his daughter's education? Would there be tech jobs for her when she graduates? "I'm unsure about everything now," Nguyen says. "And she's unsure as well." Nguyen came to the U.S. from Vietnam. He thought tech would provide aOutsourced: In A Twist, Some San Francisco IT Jobs Are Moving To Indiahttp://kuow.org/post/outsourced-twist-some-san-francisco-tech-jobs-are-moving-india
95122 as http://kuow.orgTue, 27 Dec 2016 21:36:00 +0000Outsourced: In A Twist, Some San Francisco IT Jobs Are Moving To IndiaThe World staffBhangra is a style of both music and dance that's popular in the Punjab region of India. But a new bhangra video that went viral has a distinctly different backdrop: Peggy's Cove, in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. In the video, two men dance on a big granite ledge in front of the Atlantic Ocean. Hasmeet Singh is part of the Halifax-based group, called Maritime Bhangra. He's shocked and overjoyed by the responses the video has received. "It was one of those things we usually do, right? We just go anywhere and start dancing and make a small clip out of it and just post it," he says. "I would say in the first few hours we saw that people were taking a lot of interest in this and we were very happy. We were like, 'Okay, this will get like 1,000 or 1,500 views.' And it looks like it's going to go 300,000 in a few moments." Minutes later that number was 326,000 and counting. It's all about momentum. But there are plenty of bhangra videos on the internet — why did this one take off? Check out this bhangra by the beach, Nova Scotia stylehttp://kuow.org/post/check-out-bhangra-beach-nova-scotia-style
89290 as http://kuow.orgWed, 28 Sep 2016 22:13:44 +0000Check out this bhangra by the beach, Nova Scotia styleJulie McCarthyIsha Devi hails from Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, built by a grieving king for a beloved queen. Isha now lives three hours and a world away from any such romantic ideals. Renting a small dingy room, this mother of a 12- and 14-year-old has come to the outskirts of New Delhi to live close to her fertility clinic. Isha, 30, is six months pregnant with someone else's twins. Her room opens onto a noisy alleyway of families in similarly cramped quarters all sharing a single bathroom. Isha groans, shifts uncomfortably on her cot and rearranges her pink floral sari. Isha explains, "I was helpless" and became a surrogate to expunge a family debt. Surrogacy has been described as a thriving — and lucrative — industry in India. But no national surveys have been done to come up with an estimate of how many women are involved. And no law currently governs surrogacy in India. That could change. The government is proposing a law that would bar couples married fewer than five years, unmarried couples,Why Some Of India's Surrogate Moms Are Full Of Regrethttp://kuow.org/post/why-some-indias-surrogate-moms-are-full-regret
88792 as http://kuow.orgTue, 20 Sep 2016 23:54:16 +0000Why Some Of India's Surrogate Moms Are Full Of RegretSandip RoyA legendary South Asian dish has suddenly found itself in the midst of a war in India. Made up of layers of meat and rice and cooked with fragrant spices, the dish is the much-loved biryani. And the latest battlefield is in the northern Indian state of Haryana. The police there have been collecting biryani samples from households and shops in Muslim districts like Mewat, to check if the meat in the biryani is beef – the consumption of which is anathema to many Hindus. It's the most recent chapter in an ongoing battle over religious and caste identities playing out through food in India, sometimes with dark consequences. "The battle around food is not just about eating," says social scientist Shiv Viswanathan, professor at Jindal Global Law School in Haryana. "Food is essentially the grammar of society. You show hospitality through food. You can also insult someone through food." That's why this biryani surveillance feels so loaded. Biryani, unlike other Indian favorites, has MuslimIndia's War On Biryani Mixes Caste, Religion, Cow-Avenging Vigilanteshttp://kuow.org/post/indias-war-biryani-mixes-caste-religion-cow-avenging-vigilantes
88193 as http://kuow.orgMon, 12 Sep 2016 22:28:00 +0000India's War On Biryani Mixes Caste, Religion, Cow-Avenging VigilantesJulie McCarthyA steady rain falls on velvet green terraces, releasing a powerful scent of newly harvested tea. A ripple of voices tumbles down the hillside as a man barks orders. The tea pickers, all women, many in bare feet, expertly navigate the leech-infested slopes. Balancing hampers on their backs loaded with freshly plucked tea leaves, they descend for their morning tea break. It could be a scene out of the 19th century, when the estates of the southern Indian state of Kerala were first cultivated on the mist-shrouded highlands of Munnar. Today, the manicured tea terraces sprawl across the landscape. The verdant bushes grow year round, spilling down the hills to meet the curving roads. The beauty of these gardens belies the hardships of workers, who produce nearly 50 million pounds of tea a year here at the Kanan Devan Hills Plantations Company. For all the timelessness of the place, there's a very modern twist — the tea pickers have defied the male hierarchy of trade unions who represent teaFemale Tea Workers In One Indian State Fight For Their Rightshttp://kuow.org/post/female-tea-workers-one-indian-state-fight-their-rights
82994 as http://kuow.orgMon, 04 Jul 2016 20:02:00 +0000Female Tea Workers In One Indian State Fight For Their RightsAri ShapiroPeople in India know the Sundarbans as a beautiful and dangerous patchwork of mangrove islands covering nearly 4,000 square miles extending into Bangladesh. It is also home to a variety of rare and endangered species and a UNESCO World Heritage Site . Now, this watery landscape is getting international attention for a different reason. Some of these islands are disappearing, swallowed up by rising tides. Tens of thousands of people who live in the Sundarbans have lost their homes in recent decades. This is an estuary where saltwater from the Bay of Bengal mixes with freshwater from three of India's major rivers — the Ganges, the Meghna and the Brahmaputra. The tides in the Sundarbans are so dramatic that about a third of the land disappears and reappears every day. That's been happening for centuries. But just in the past few decades, the changes have become more extreme. In this delta, water levels are rising more dramatically than in other parts of the world — especially on theThe Vanishing Islands Of India's Sundarbanshttp://kuow.org/post/vanishing-islands-indias-sundarbans
79963 as http://kuow.orgTue, 24 May 2016 14:49:59 +0000The Vanishing Islands Of India's SundarbanseditorIn Hindi, the saying goes that to survive, you need three things: roti , meaning bread or food, kapda or clothing, and makaan , shelter. India has a roti problem. While the country has catapulted to No. 3 in the world for obesity , it's also the hungriest country in the world. India has 194.6 million undernourished people — that's more than half the world total. It's what people mean when they talk about "food insecurity:" the economic and social condition of limited or unpredictable access to adequate food. But in a study published in the August 2015 issue of the journal Lancet , researchers found that India also has 46 million obese citizens . The dabbawallas — Mumbai's lunch delivery collective — have stepped in with an initiative they're calling the Roti Bank. Their aim is to connect the have-nots with the have-too-muchs. "We deal with food every day, so we're ideally placed to fix this," says Dashrath Kedare, a co-founder of the Roti Bank and a leader of one of the dabbawallaThe Dabbawallas Will Deliver Wedding Leftovers To The Hungryhttp://kuow.org/post/dabbawallas-will-deliver-wedding-leftovers-hungry
79288 as http://kuow.orgSun, 15 May 2016 11:00:00 +0000The Dabbawallas Will Deliver Wedding Leftovers To The HungryAri ShapiroWaiting quietly in the living room of a home in an upscale New Delhi neighborhood are a dozen people of all ages — maids, security guards, construction workers, all of whom earn at most a few dollars a day. The elegant, plant-filled room is hushed except for the sound of coughing. Over in the next room, Dr. Gita Prakash is at her dining table with a stethoscope pressed to a pregnant woman's chest. Prakash has been treating indigent patients here for 30 years, six nights a week, in the evenings after she finishes her rounds at the local hospital where she works. Some of the people Prakash sees are the third generation from their families to seek her help. And over the decades, the kinds of problems she treats have changed. "You know, there's a lot more of coughs and colds and allergies. And asthmas, which were not so prevalent earlier," she says. A lot of the patients at her clinic spend all day outdoors. Restaurant delivery man Dilip Kumar Chaudhary has brought his feverish son in forIndia's Big Battle: Development Vs. Pollutionhttp://kuow.org/post/indias-big-battle-development-vs-pollution
79217 as http://kuow.orgFri, 13 May 2016 20:27:00 +0000India's Big Battle: Development Vs. PollutionJulie McCarthyEarly morning light filters into the cavernous gymnasium as Neetu lunges, climbs and contorts her body into impossible positions. She shimmies up a thick rope that dangles from the two-story ceiling, her heavily muscled arms propelling her upward. She races through calisthenics with 25 other young women in the boot camp atmosphere of Chhotu Ram Stadium and Wrestling Center, in the Indian state of Haryana, known for its wrestling tradition. The grueling twice-a-day practice– 4 hours in the morning and 3 1/2 in the afternoon-- is her ordinary routine. But there is nothing ordinary about this young woman, who prefers to be known simply by her first name. Her journey to become a promising athlete began from a most unpromising place: as a child bride. At 13, Neetu was married off to a man three times her age. "He was mentally challenged," says Neetu. When he defecated in the house, she refused to clean it up, incensing her mother-in-law. Even worse was a father-in-law who acted like aA Child Bride At 13, She's Turned Herself Into A Prize-Winning Wrestlerhttp://kuow.org/post/child-bride-13-shes-turned-herself-prize-winning-wrestler
77490 as http://kuow.orgSat, 23 Apr 2016 11:13:24 +0000A Child Bride At 13, She's Turned Herself Into A Prize-Winning WrestlerKamna ShastriI’m the black sheep in my family. Scratch that - I’m actually more of a white sheep. Here’s what a family photo would look like: my mom, dad, and brother, each with their own wonderful shade of brown. And then there’s me: p ale, white, and blond haired.Albinism And Me: How My Genetic Condition Makes My Ethnicity Invisible http://kuow.org/post/albinism-and-me-how-my-genetic-condition-makes-my-ethnicity-invisible
76158 as http://kuow.orgThu, 14 Apr 2016 06:53:09 +0000Albinism And Me: How My Genetic Condition Makes My Ethnicity Invisible Bill ChappellEmergency crews are scrambling to reach people trapped when an under-construction elevated roadway collapsed onto a busy street in Kolkata, India, on Thursday. More than a dozen people have died, local media say, and dozens more are trapped. News of the number of dead or injured is still emerging, and those reports are currently fluctuating. Citing police, Asian News International reports that at least 14 people are dead, with more than 70 wounded. Part of the collapse was caught on a surveillance camera; the footage shows that people crossing an intersection had only the briefest of warnings, perhaps just a couple of seconds, before the overpass came down. Images from the scene in eastern India show cars and trucks pinned under large concrete sections, as scores of people work around tangled metal supports to try to help others who were injured or trapped by the collapse. Rescue crews are using cranes to clear debris and pull cars and other vehicles from the wreckage in centralOverpass Collapse In Kolkata, India, Kills More Than A Dozen Peoplehttp://kuow.org/post/overpass-collapse-kolkata-india-kills-more-dozen-people
75813 as http://kuow.orgThu, 31 Mar 2016 11:14:00 +0000Overpass Collapse In Kolkata, India, Kills More Than A Dozen PeopleDeepak SinghWhen I was a child growing up in India, once every year my father took my two siblings, my mother and me to the village where he grew up. He thought it was important for us kids to see rural living and to learn how basic life could be. He often said, "City folks are lucky to have cooking gas cylinders. You'll see how food is cooked in the village." His village, Dev Gaon, is about 60 miles from Lucknow — the city where I was born and bred. We usually rode a government-operated bus for about two hours to get there. The last stretch had to be traveled in a cart pulled by two bullocks. The only cushioning was a thin layer of hay. It was very uncomfortable. My mother hated it, but my siblings and I loved it. It was a different kind of experience for us. A lot changed in the last 10 miles. The road was just mud, flanked by sugarcane fields. Brick houses gave way to mud houses. When we arrived at my grandmother's mud house, we saw her waiting in the large front yard. She sat us down on herYou've Got Dung! Amazon Is Delivering Cow Pies In Indiahttp://kuow.org/post/youve-got-dung-amazon-delivering-cow-pies-india
70395 as http://kuow.orgWed, 06 Jan 2016 18:06:00 +0000You've Got Dung! Amazon Is Delivering Cow Pies In IndiaNurith AizenmanIt's evening rush hour at a street market in the city of Pune, India. Fifteen-year-old flower seller Aniket Sathe is in his element — bargaining with customers, catching up with friends who drop by. They gossip about school, check out the motorbikes whizzing past and dream up crazy schemes. Like, what if they could get ahold of the balloons that the woman next to Aniket is selling? Aniket points to a nearby building and grins. "If we took as many balloons as would fit in there and tied them to your hand you could fly in the sky," he says. But lately all the fun Aniket is having in the market is making him feel a little sorry for his older sister. "She can't come here," he says. "Every day she has work to do at home." That's a new insight for Aniket. The division of labor in his family — he sells flowers in the market, his sister is stuck at home washing clothes and cooking dinner — is something he never thought to question. That is, until recently, when he joined an unusual class.Why This Boy Started Helping His Sister With Chores: #15Girlshttp://kuow.org/post/why-boy-started-helping-his-sister-chores-15girls
69123 as http://kuow.orgMon, 14 Dec 2015 16:27:59 +0000Why This Boy Started Helping His Sister With Chores: #15Girls